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Ticketmaster is essentially accused of colluding with scalpers – and charging double fees in the process – in a multi-week survey published by CBC and the Toronto Star on Tuesday and today. The outlets sent two undercover reporters to an entertainment conference in July, where ticketmaster representatives featured them on TradeDesk, the company's exclusive ticket resale platform.
The platform allows resellers to buy tickets in bulk from the Ticketmaster site and resell them for higher prices. Ticketmaster takes a percentage of the prices by clicking a button based on their rating. While Ticketmaster has filed a highly publicized lawsuit against blatant bots and profiteers on the secondary market – including its own fan fan program recently used by Bruce Springsteen, Taylor Swift and others – the report captures a camera representative saying that the team will turn a blind eye when such practices take place on its own platforms. The representative, whose identity is blurred in the video, says, "I have brokers who literally have a few hundred accounts" to buy wholesale tickets on TradeDesk. "It's not something we look at or report on."
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It was asked if Ticketmaster would ban scalpers that thwart ticket purchase limits – a violation of the company's terms of use – an employee of the company told one of the reporters, "We have spent millions of dollars for this tool. The last thing we want to do is make sure brokers know where they can not sell inventory with us. We are not trying to build a better mousetrap.
During a video demonstration at a conference in March, at which media was banned, a Ticketmaster employee stated that 100 scalpers in North America were using TradeDesk to sell between a few thousand and several million dollars. tickets per year. "I think our biggest broker probably caught about $ 5 million," he said.
The report also accuses the ticketing giant of timing the publication of the tickets to make believe that the demand is higher than actually to encourage fans to turn to the more expensive options, then to release the cheapest tickets by the following.
In a statement included in the story, Ticketmaster's vice president of communications said, "Ticketmaster is a technology platform that helps artists and teams communicate with their fans," the company said. "We do not own the tickets sold on our platform, nor do we control the price of the tickets, whether at the initial sale or the resale. In both cases, the prices are set by the seller. We also do not determine when tickets are available for purchase or how they are allocated – these decisions are communicated to us by our customer, the venue, after consultation with the presenter of the event.
"As long as there will be an imbalance between the supply and demand of tickets for live events, there will inevitably be a secondary market," the statement said. "As the world's leading ticketing platform, representing thousands of teams, artists and venues, we believe it is our job to provide a safe and fair market for fans who buy, sell and sell notes on the primary and secondary markets. . "
A Ticketmaster representative did not immediately respond to Variety's request for further comment.
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